Cassette 9: Loss, Hands/Transcript
This is the official transcript for the episode which can also be accessed for free at'' patreon.com/withinthewires'' Welcome to Cassette 3 of the Extensive Studies Lab Preparation Program. The Black Box Monitor has been removed from your abdomen and replaced with a Transmitter. The data from the Black Box, and its many long, clattering tubes, has been studied for chemical levels in your body's fluids - blood, cerebrospinal fluid, lymph, and so on. The results of the test are classified, however you are still here and recovering from your surgeries, and so you are fine. You are naked. You are not alone. You are fine. In this cassette we will address bodily loss. As you recover in the Class-L Rehabilitation Cell, your Security Nurse will check your vitals and scans. As you cannot currently move, due to both pain and restraints, these cassettes will be played aloud from an Authorized Cassette Player, without the privacy of Institute Authorized Headphones. Your nurse may also monitor your listening habits and report on how you respond to what is being said on these cassettes. As has been detailed on these cassettes many (many) times before, these audio programs are designed for study, for relaxation, and for preparation. You are to take no action which is not explicitly instructed by these cassettes. My voice will guide you through these exercises for recovery, and to prepare you for your third session in the Extensive Studies Lab. The third session will involve the sound of carpentry. Close your eyes and envision the sound of carpentry. Cassette Three, Side A - In the Calm of Your Hand # # # Lie down. Rather, remain lying down. In truth, you don't have any choice in this matter, as you are already lying upon a cold metal table, wrists and ankles tied to eye-hooks along each side. Close your eyes. Your eyes are something you can control. It is better if you close your eyes. And open the eye that is your mind. Lift out of yourself and look below. See your form. See your scar. See the scar along your abdomen. You have felt this scar many times. You cannot feel it now. Not with your fingers anyway. It looks bigger in your eyes than used to be. This is because it is. Notice the new Y-shape of the scar. Notice the slight bulge underneath the dark stitches, which pull tight your swollen skin. What does your skin remember? The lump below the Y is a new creature in your cave. It is large and it glistens like obsidian. It has a blinking light and an internal antenna. It does not have many legs. It does not have any legs at all, for it does not hold for you everything you have lost. It does not need those things. It only wants to know where you are. It wants to know where you are at all times, and report back what it knows to those who might have reason to want to find you. Do you miss the creature with the many long, clattering legs? The very thing that kept everything you had ever lost is now, itself, lost to you. And now, the new creature with it's red, blinking eye, and thick, plastic antenna will make sure that YOU are not lost to the Institute. You are always found. Look down over your body and watch as your Security Nurse bathes your wound, your scar. You have an infection. This is natural for most Class-L, Level 3 participants. At the end of this cassette, your Security Nurse will issue your Dosages, which will soon incapacitate your physical agency without the need for ropes tied into eye-hooks along a cold, metal table. You must make the most of your physical agency during the time you have it. As your Security Nurse cleans your body and writes down notes onto a clipboard and prepares your dosages, relax your feet and hands. Do not tighten your muscles, as this will tighten the knots on the ropes, which will tighten the ropes on your skin, which will tighten your blood vessels. You will need good blood flow in order to properly receive your dosages. Dosages are vital for all Level 3 participants, as they help the participants ignore the sounds of carpentry. All participants will hear the sounds of carpentry. It is impossible for participants not to hear what sounds like lumber and machines and spinning blades. But dosages help you ignore those sounds, and the feelings they can create within you. Using the eye that is your mind, look about the room. Notice, to your right, an ambulant tray with gauze, a syringe, three small bottles of fluid, a scalpel, iodine, and a paper cup containing two red and blue pills, two white pills, and a dark green lozenge. A plastic cup filled with tepid water. Look at the top of the Security Nurse. She has a papery gray cap and soft blue scrubs. She holds a damp orange sponge, which she runs roughly along your sides, under your arms, and over your face. You can see her thin gold necklace and semi-gloss nail polish. Look on the wall above the door. There is a clock. It reads 3:44. There are no windows, but your body can feel it is early morning and not mid-afternoon. Look up to the corner of the room. There is a camera. There is a camera in each Rehabilitation Cell. At the front of the camera is a lens. Let the eye that is your mind float close to the lens. Let the eye that is your mind enter the lens. Look around. See the circuitry of the Security Camera. There is a line of cables feeding into a thicker yellow cord. Follow the yellow cord. Follow the copper wiring inside the rubbery tube. Envision little electrical flashes as you zip along the wire. Those aren't really there, but cinematic visual flare can help your visualization. At the end of the copper wiring is a motherboard. Around the motherboard, is a large box containing a video cassette which records what happens in your room to ferromagnetic tape. Above this box is a monitor and in front of the monitor is a person. This person is smaller than you. She is younger than you, but not by much. She has blue eyes which stare into a black and white screen. She knows you very well. This person cares very much for your health, and for your success in the Extensive Studies Lab. This person is making certain you do not endanger your stay at the Institute with another violent outburst. This person knows you can free yourself by understanding your body from top-down. The person in front of the video monitor has placed a hand gently upon the screen, gently over the grayscale image of your motionless body. Gently, as if to keep a balloon from lifting out of gravity. Return the eye that is your mind to the Rehabilitation Cell. Look down upon your body, affixed to the table, atop the concrete floor, resting upon upturned sod. Open your eyes. Look at your security Nurse. You have completed Side A. Before continuing to Side B, allow your Security Nurse to administer your pre-Dosage pills and lozenge. Allow her to stop the cassette, flip it to the other side and press play. Keep your feet and hands relaxed. Do not struggle. And for cinematic flare, I will add: "That will only make it worse." END SIDE A. # # # Cassette Three, Side B - Cut Your Losses Let us begin with a simple visualization exercise. After that, there will be a very brief, but very important physical exercise. First, close your eyes. The lozenge, which tastes like aluminium, should be numbing your jaw and limiting your salivation. Your mouth is dry, drying. Do not think about the glass of water on the table. A dry mouth is important for carpentry. There are components of the Machine, which will be inserted into your mouth, and the Institute would not like those expensive components to get wet. Ignore the glass of water. Keep your eye closed and envision a hallway. It is a familiar hallway. You recognize one of the doors as your own. Or as one which used to be your own. A new patient inhabits that room now. Down the hallway are five doors, on your right. Each is white. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Envision this fifth door. Envision yourself walking past this door. Allow time to slow. Think of a time - any number of times in your recent life - where you walked past that door. What do you hear? Envision the sounds coming from that door. Envision a soft hum. Look at the light below the door. Is it a flickering, silver light? Milder and colder than the incandescent lights peeking below the other doors? More aggressive and bland than the dull blue white of the fluorescent lights of the corridor? Envision yourself placing a hand on the door. Gently. Envision the feeling of the door. It is warm. The soft hum from behind it, vibrates the door itself. Envision the feeling of warm air coming from the crack below the door. Envision yourself continuing down the hallway. You are in a crowd. The people around you move slowly. You move at a normal gait which feels quick in comparison to them. You are not special. You are not noticed. The crowd, mostly, is dressed like you. Light paper gowns and stiff slippers. No one wears makeup or carries any belongings. See their eyes, downcast and hazy, like psychosomatic cataracts. See their lips, slightly open, not always remembering to breathe. You always remember to breathe. In. And Out. Look about the crowd for people who do not look like you. There is one woman with a papery gray cap. She is a Security Nurse. She wears thick base, a thin gold chain with a jeweled lavalliere just visibile in the V neck of her scrubs, and semi-gloss nail polish. Her eyes are downcast and hazy as well. There are three women wearing helmets and protective vests at the end of the hallway. They hold rifles at their sides, casually. They are in mid conversation. There is one other woman. She wears a navy blue dress jacket and matching skirt. Her hair is pulled tightly back into a ponytail. She has blue eyes. They are not downcast or hazy. They are bright and alert. They are looking at you. Right. At. You. You have seen her before, have you not? You have. Have you ever seen this face, those eyes, in a park? You have. The crowd in the corridor moves slowly. Relative to them, you speed along, unnoticed. Not special. Except for one person who sees you. Sees you for who you are. You are not violent. You are naked. You are not alone. You are fine. You will feel fine. In this visualization, you speed past the blue-eyed woman, not unlike a jogger in a park passing a friendly stranger who says hi. As you pass this woman in the corridor, her eyes stay on you until you have passed. Turn around to watch the crowd. Watch the back of the woman slowly move away. Are you breathing. It's important you remember to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Quickly. Stay alert. She opens a door. It is the fifth door down from your former room. Inside the door, you can see a wall of television screens, each flickering silvery images of client rooms, Rehabilitation Cells. You even see a room with a large machine. Attached to that machine is a man. The image is grainy. His mouth is wide, a distorted black maw below two black caverns for eyes. His chest lurches up. His toes curl under his feet. His hands are two round stones. The sounds of carpentry from the video can be heard just above the lesser sounds of the other screens. The faint carpentry and the soft hum of the monitors and video reels and computers dampen the sound of each life on each screen. You look for your own room on the wall of monitors. You see one screen with a small note taped to it. The note says 3:55am. Exclamation Point. On the screen above the note is a room with a metal table, a Security Nurse filling a syringe from a small bottle of fluid, and a woman with a cloud of dark hair lying on a table with her eyes closed, envisioning herself in a hallway watching a recapitulation of herself lying on a metal table visualizing herself in a hallway, and on and on. The blue-eyed woman in the hallway looks at you. The crowd looks down, still moving slowly. She says the word Free. You cannot hear her voice in the din of monitors but you can see it on her flips. Free. What a funny word. Free. Open your eyes. Let us continue now to our physical exercise. Your jaw is numb, I know, and the Security Nurse is preparing your dosages, but it is important that you get just a little bit of exercise before your Dosages kick in and before you are sent to the Extensive Studies Lab for your third session. Listen. Practice. Implement. As there is little time remaining on this cassette, the Security Nurse will have already given you Dosage A in your right arm. You will likely feel the effects already. The sensation is very similar to a light buzz over a bottle of red wine. She will have already given you Dosage B in your right arm. You will, in a few minutes, begin to lose feeling in your hands and feet. You will lose use of your legs and arms. Like a newborn infant, you will have no muscular support of your head. In order to increase circulation and knowing that the participant has received the first two Dosages, the Security Nurse will have untied your feet and hands from the eye-hooks on the metal table. The Security Nurse will be preparing to give you Dosage C, which is a different syringe all together. It is a skinnier, longer needle. It will be plunged into the right side of your neck. This syringe is in a cabinet beneath a sink in the corner of the room. It is directly below the camera. The camera cannot see anything that happens directly below it. As you are listening to this cassette aloud, without the use of authorised headphones, the Security Nurse can hear it. At this point she might be wondering what kind of audio exercise is being conducted. I ask the Security Nurse to trust my voice. I ask the Security Nurse to think about forgiveness. You have very little time between the confusion of the Security Nurse and the complete effect of the drugs. Lift your right hand and place it upon the ambulant tray next to your metal table. Pick up the gauze. Sit up quickly. Lift your body with your arms, with one hand placed firmly on the table, turn the earth beneath you. Raise your legs and swing them towards the Security Nurse. Hurl yourself toward her and press her body into the cabinet. Take the syringe from her right hand. Move quickly, before your body can no longer support itself. Using the gauze in your other hand, cover her screaming mouth. Are you remembering to breath? In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Pressing her chest into the cabinet, drive the syringe into her neck. Breathe. Are you remembering to breathe? In. breathes And Out. breathes You are naked. You are alone. You probably are not fine right now. I have either timed this cassette correctly or incorrectly. Either way, I have little time remaining before this all ends. this point, the audio is warping, getting slower and less comprehensible, as the listener is losing their physical and mental grip from the drugs If I have timed this correctly, you will see the door open behind you. A blue-eyed woman disguised as a Lab Technician will enter the room. If I have timed this incorrectly, then that previous sentence is directed at the Security Nurse, who will have tied you back to the table (or worse) and paged the Institute's Security Team. Oleta. Turn around. Oleta. Am I there? Am I at the door? Can you hear me? Can you move? Oleta. Oleta. warps and fades out; no 'end side b' Category:Transcripts